Jim Crow
- A minstrel character of a black man, portrayed by a white man, by blackening his face with charcoal and jumping up and down and speaking with broken English
- the Jim Crow idea was one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority in the popular culture of the mid to late 1800’s
Plessy V. Ferguson
- 1896 Supreme Court decision
- “Separate, but equal”
- Basis of Jim Crow Laws
- Brown V. Board of Ed.
- May 1954 – Little girl forced to go across town to a Black school
- Supreme Court says it’s unconstitutional to separate students by race
- No deadline for compliance given
Rosa Parks
- Dec. 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama
- Martin Luther King Jr. asked to lead bus boycott
- Supreme Court makes it illegal to segregate public transportation in 1956
Central High School
- Federal Court orders 9 Blacks be allowed to attend White school in Little Rock, Arkansas
- Governor sends National Guard to stop them
- President Eisenhower sends army to protect students
Sit-Ins
- Feb. 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Passive resistance against segregated lunch counters
- Freedom Riders
Spring 1961
- Blacks board buses to go to segregated bus terminals
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Martin Luther King Jr. protests against segregation (April 1963)
- Violence against marchers broadcast on TV
- President Kennedy sends in troops to protect marchers and proposes a Civil Rights Bill
- Univ. of Alabama
- Governor George Wallace blocks the door to keep Blacks out of the university (June 1963)
- March on Washington
- 100th Anniversary of Emancipation Proclamation (Aug. 1963)
- “I have a dream” speech at Lincoln Memorial
- JFK Shot
- President Kennedy assassinated (Nov. 1963)
- Vice-President Johnson vows to continue his work
- Civil Rights Act
July 1964
- Forbids discrimination / racial prejudice
- Voting Rights Act
1965
- Eliminates test of English reading ability from voter registration
- Boosts Black, Mexican, and other minority voters
- Selma, Alabama
- Jan. 1965
- Selma turns down Black voter registrations
- Sheriff attacks protestors with dogs
- Selma-Montgomery March
- March 1965
- President Johnson sends troops to protect the marchers
- “Burn, Baby, Burn!”
- Northern Blacks unofficially segregated into ghettos and poor-paying jobs
- Summer riots and fires
- “Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride” - Martin Luther King Jr. shot in Memphis
- Rioting and violence erupts all over USA
- “It may be necessary to burn the U.S. down to save ourselves”
Nixon
- 1968 Richard Nixon takes office
- Tries to slow down Civil Rights gains (but fails)
- Nation of Islam
- “Black Muslims”
- Led by Elijah Muhammad
- Blacks should completely isolate themselves
- Malcolm X
- A Nation of Islam leader
- Calls for Blacks to use violence to get equality
- Breaks with Nation of Islam over integration vs. isolation
- Shot by Nation of Islam in 1965
Black Panthers
- Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver
- Formed in 1966
- Want to arm Blacks and use force to get equal rights
- Ultimately condemned black nationalism as “black racism”.
- Became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity and instituted a variety of community programs to alleviate poverty among communities deemed most needful of aid.
Black Power
- Prominent in 1960s and 1970s
- Emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests
- 2 African American athletes performed the Black Power salute at the 1968 games in Mexico city.
- one of the most overtly political statements in the 110 year history of the modern Olympics.
NAACP
- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization for ethnic minorities in the united States.
Affirmative Action
- Set of public policies designed to eliminate past and present discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
- Affirmative-Action has been criticized as a form of “reverse- discrimination”
- Perpetuates discrimination against all those who are not part of the designated groups.
Rodney King & L.A. Riots
- In 1992 a predominately white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King when he resisted arrest.
- Seeing the verdict as a metaphor for historic injustice against African-Americans in the United States, thousands of African Americans in L.A. commenced to riot over six days.
- 53 people died during the riots.
